Secondly, this thesis studies the preference of studio control rooms among professional mixing engineers. To enable A/B comparison between different control room-loudspeaker combinations, rooms were auralized on the basis of SDManalysis. In the listening tests, auralizations were played back with 30-channel loudspeaker system in an anechoic chamber. The preference test was conducted in a form of pair comparison, where subjects listened to the auralizations, and chose the room in which they would prefer to work. After the preference tests, subjects were interviewed to reveal their arguments behind the preference decisions. Also each control room was listened to individually, and mixing engineers were asked to describe the acoustics of each room with their own words.

Finally, the results of the listening tests and their connections to spatiotemporal visualizations are discussed. The results of the listening tests clearly showed that mixing engineers prefer acoustically dry rooms. Accurate stereo image and the amount of room reverberation were the most important factors for them. In contrast, mastering engineers seemed to prefer more lively rooms and the frequency balance was the most important factor for them. The preference rating seemed also to vary between different music samples.